Women building Mosque in Istanbul ; Sakirin Mosque- CNN Article

photo by Oguz Kosebalaban

Shakirin Mosque in Asiatic Istanbul will definetely add a lot to your Istanbul experience , considering it is one of the most impressive modern architecture mosques of the world, and moreover, the only mosque designed by a woman architect, and the exceptional situation is so that, this happens to be her first mosque, and she is more known for designing upscaled homes and night clubs! Yet, this mosque is a winner. Enough proof is the classical architects value it enough to attack bitterly in their comments. But as the turkish idiom says, the tree with the fruits will be stoned. Their common comment is the mosque is too open to the outer world by large glasses, qoran like patterns on the glasses etc is distracting the worshippers, I presume they have never been here for a worship. It is truly impressive, highly helping to meditate and pray, and even able to keep my non moslem visitors witnessing a prayer for half hour.

The letters on the glasses are stylised, and adds to the privacy feeling during the prayer, and plus the grates outside the windows, and that is enough seperation from the outer world; while the upper windows face the sky and the top of the tall cypresses, simply peaceful and divine; nice transition from the chandelier hanging from the ceiling on which the verse of ‘Nur’, holy light is placed in Qoran language, with a neat work of caligraphy.

First time I went to this mosque few years ago was before it was even officially opened, but my visitors from the US saw it on TV which was regarded very highly, to realise in these past few years on each and every tour of mine going to Asiatic Istanbul it well deserves it.

But as in the other Turkish idiom, ” (real) friend talks bitterly” , here are my criticisms although I am not an architect :

The Istanbul municipal cemetery directorate office building is ruining the architecture of the building. It is acting as a barrier and doing damage to the visibility of the building: It had to be closer to the cemetery, on the opposite site: It should be levelled and go back to where the car park is. And the car park should go underground and the space should be used for a peaceful park. The car entrance to the carpark should use the first right turn , and better , go underground.

Yes, this mosque is commissioned by Sakirin family, if they approve along with the architect, the alterations should be financed by the municipality, using those offices, or the religion department of the state ( Diyanet Isleri ) .

CNN article on Şakirin ( Shakirin ) Mosque:
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) — There is a shiny addition among the Ottoman mosques and palaces that make up Istanbul’s stunning skyline: the metallic, mirrored dome of the new Sakirin Mosque, a Muslim place of worship built with a woman’s touch.
When sun reflects off Sakirin Mosque’s dome, light can be seen across the Bosphorus Strait.When sun reflects off Sakirin Mosque’s dome, light can be seen across the Bosphorus Strait.For what may be the first time in history, women have been at the forefront of the construction of a mosque in Turkey.One of the project’s leaders is Zeynep Fadillioglu, an interior decorator who has designed restaurants, hotels and luxury homes from New Delhi, India, to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and London, England.

She helped organize a team of traditional mosque artists specializing in Islamic calligraphy, along with craftsmen in glassworks, metal-casting and lighting who, like Fadillioglu, have built careers working in exclusively secular architecture and design.

“I want people to feel peaceful and be left with themselves as much as possible and yet have beautiful art and artistic symbolism around them,” she said.

Istanbul has a venerable tradition of mosque architecture, dating back centuries to when Ottoman sultans declared themselves caliph, or spiritual leader of the Muslim world. Video Watch Zeynep Fadilioglu show off her work and inspirations »

The shores of the Bosporus Strait are studded with 16th century masterpieces such as the Suleymaniye Mosque, built by the Ottoman Empire’s most famous architect, Mimar Sinan, and ornate, neo-Baroque jewels designed by the Armenian Balyan family in the 19th century. But Istanbul’s most senior Muslim cleric laments that mosque design suffered a decline after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I.

“In the last 70, 80 years, we have built mosques that are copies of Ottoman architecture,” said Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti of Istanbul. “This wasn’t a good development, because the copy can never be as good as the original.”

Fadillioglu and her team of artists are hoping to change that. Photo Look at photos of the mosque »

The Sakirin Mosque was commissioned by a wealthy Turkish Arab family and built in one of Istanbul’s oldest cemeteries.

The designers put a number of contemporary touches on the structure, giving it plate glass walls etched with gold-leaf verses from the Quran, framed by giant cast-iron grids.
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“If we think about this place as a home of God, we can also say women will make this place much better.”
Carpenter Metin Cekeroglu

The mihrab — the alcove that points worshippers in the direction of Mecca — is made of asymmetrical ovals, similar to a design used by Fadillioglu to decorate a restaurant in London. And the chandelier is a multi-layered series of metal and plexiglass rings, carrying Quranic inscriptions and dripping with scores of delicate glass teardrops.

“The glass chandelier brings the high dome down to the people,” Fadillioglu explained. “So when they pray and kneel they don’t feel lost with the light and it shelters them.”

Many of the artists here never worked on a mosque before.

“It’s special that a woman’s hand is involved in this,” said one of them, a male carpenter named Metin Cekeroglu. “If you think about it, a home is made by woman. And if we think about this place as a home of God, we can also say women will make this place much better.”

Fadillioglu said one of her goals was to bring extra attention into the design of the women’s section of the mosque, an area that she says is often neglected by architects. According to Islamic tradition, worshippers are segregated by gender at mosques.

“I have seen mosques where women have been pushed to the worst part of stairs, cramped area. Sort of as if (they are) unwanted in the mosque,” she said. “That is not what Islam is about. … Women are equal in Islam to men”

Five minutes’ drive from the Sakirin Mosque stands the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque, a 16th century structure built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in honor of his favorite daughter. Unfortunately, female worshippers do not get to enjoy its stunning stained glass windows the way the men do. They have to pray in a small women’s section, hidden behind a bank of chest-high shelves that store shoes.

At the Sakirin Mosque, Fadillioglu said, she gave women praying on the balcony an unobstructed view of the dome, the ornate chandelier, and the area on the floor where the imam will lead prayers.

“I would like to come here to pray,” said Elif Demir, an 18-year old art student with a funky, orange-dyed haircut who was working on the chandelier. “This mosque is completely different because of the light that’s coming through the walls, through the glass.”

Fadillioglu’s role in the Sakirin Mosque is all the more surprising because she comes from a jet-set side of Turkish society not normally associated with Islam.

“It is unusual,” she conceded, “because first of all not many modern people have been commissioned to design a mosque.”

She spoke in a recent interview at Ulus 29, the expensive Istanbul hilltop restaurant and bar that is owned by her husband. Amid the Ottoman- and Selcuk-inspired flourishes she has sprinkled around the restaurant are echoes of designs seen at the Sakirin Mosque. A glass chandelier made of hundreds of crystal tear drops hangs above the bar, similar in style to the mosque’s chandelier.

Fadillioglu said being a night club owner does not prevent her from also being a Muslim.

“You might be surprised in Turkey to find some very modern-looking people being very religious at the same time,” she said.

Religion is a hot-button political issue in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country with a strict secular system of government.

For the past eight years a fierce power struggle has been under way between an urban secular elite and a rising new class of religiously conservative Turks from the Anatolian heartlands. Unlike the wives of Turkey’s Islamic-rooted president and prime minister, Fadillioglu does not wear the Islamic headscarf that is often seen as the symbol of this new class of Turks.

Fadillioglu said politics have polarized society.

“In my childhood … you didn’t differentiate between who was religious,” she explained. “Whoever wants to worship or visit this mosque, its open, its ready for them.”

On May 8, Turkey’s prime minister attended an inauguration ceremony for the Sakirin Mosque.
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Afterward, in an interview with CNN, the mufti of Istanbul called it the start of a new era of mosque design in Turkey.

“It is in Islamic tradition for women to commission mosques … and now we have women who are building mosques as well,” Cagrici said. “God willing, I hope the world will see more of these beautiful mosques, touched by women’s hands.”

About the author

All of the practical information you will find in these pages are based on my own experiences. An e-book version of these pages are at scribd.com , easy to find if you search with my name added.

I am a former photo-journalist of the first Turkish parents magazine; so the photos you at these pages are from my tours or my work. I realize some of these photos attract a number of travel agencies and I began watermarking them, and I am about to take legal action against those companies using my photographic works without my permission simply by copying them from my pages. But feel free to ask for some decent complimentary Istanbul photos to commemorate your Istanbul days. My photography works can be viewed online, look for “bitter almond photography” at facebook . Samples from my photoshop – photo manipulation works are at http://fotoyenileme.wordpress.com/

I have a bachelor’s degree in Political Sciences . I film documentary short movies; In 2007 International Istanbul Festival I began to appear in the short movie directors listings for the first time.